When the big clubs come calling, usually it is pretty easy to fill an open superintendent's position. More often than not, search committees enjoy an embarrassment of riches as they are inundated with applicants.
Not every golf facility has it so easy.
When Tom Hsieh needed a new superintendent at Gleneagles Golf Club, he didn't have the luxury of sifting through hundreds of resumes. He had two, and neither had any experience as a superintendent, an assistant or even as an intern. "We are as basic as it gets," said Hsieh, whose company, Gleneagles Golf Partners, has the management contract on the property. "We don't have the support systems and career pathways and long-term traditional growth some clubs offer. But we do offer an opportunity for explosive growth for someone who wants to take a chance and who wants to do everything at a golf course that is beloved in this region.
"I need a guy who wants to work hard, learn and not leave this golf course any time soon."
His new superintendent, Joshuwa Otto, hails from San Jose Country Club, where he was a groundskeeper on Pete Bachman's crew.
"He wasn't the assistant or an intern, and I knew that I wasn't going to get that with what I had to offer," Hsieh said. "I am the bottom rung, the first rung on the ladder, and we are feeling the pressure of the job market."
A city-owned nine-hole layout on San Francisco's scruffy southeast side, Gleneagles is the pre-ball version of Cinderella. A 1962 Jack Fleming design, she toils, forgotten, with a mop and bucket, while her spoiled stepsisters Sharp Park and TPC Harding Park wile away the hours preparing for their inevitable meeting with destiny.
While the city and the Tour dote over Sharp and Harding, Gleneagles fights tooth and nail for scraps. A recent accord with a labor union that provides low-cost help on the golf course while providing at-risk workers a valuable trade, has helped lead a revival at Gleneagles, which Hsieh believes is on its way to becoming the belle of the ball for a surrounding community in need of hope.
He has workers and the backing of several community leaders and agencies who recognize both the need to maintain a civic gem that is Gleneagles, while at the same time using it as a training ground to improve the lives of some of the city's forgotten residents.
Otto is taking over for former superintendent Gabriel Castilla, who left after seven years for a position as foreman at The Presidio.
Eventually, the goal is for Otto to run everything, from the golf course to the golf shop and bar, and everything in between. But for now, he's learning to run the golf course. The job of tending bar, collecting green fees and even mowing fairways and roughs has fallen on the shoulders of Gleneagles' starters/bartenders (who are one in the same).
In the long term, we want the property to be more than a golf course. It has to be a community resource, an academy to help the under-employed and under-served communities."
The idea of combining tasks, and thus offering more hours (and more money) to the same group, Hsieh said, was the idea of Thomas Bastis, CGCS. Superintendent at The California Golf Club of San Francisco, Bastis is not only Hsieh's friend, but also has been his agronomic mentor and consultant for most of the past decade.
"They go from pouring a manhattan, to taking green fees and get you on your way, to cutting cups and mowing fairways before their shift starts," Hsieh said.
"They love the course, and they are who I want here on this land because they are trying to make this experience the best it can be for our customers."
Three years ago, Hsieh realized he had to do something different if he was going to keep Gleneagles open. The course, which has to be self sufficient since it is not funded by the city, had entered into a death spiral of declining play, revenue and conditions.
Without golfers coming in the door, there was no money to invest in the golf course. Without investments in improved playing conditions, golfers weren't coming back. It was a scene that has been played out on hundreds of courses nationwide in the past decade.
That's when Hsieh and a local trade union reached an agreement to provide laborers for the golf course from the city's at risk community. Gleneagles receives low-cost help in six-week blocks a few times a year, and those workers receive union-backed apprenticeship training and a support network that helps them on the road to full-time employment when they "graduate" from Gleneagles.
It's a win-win-win situation for Hsieh, who receives the help he needs, workers who have hope where before there was none and the community that has its golf course back.
"In the long term, we want the property to be more than a golf course," he said. "It has to be a community resource, an academy to help the under-employed and under-served communities."
The community wants Gleneagles to survive. Hsieh already offers FootGolf on the property and recently, he fielded inquiries about carving a disc golf course out of the property. Hsieh had his doubts. He told the disc golf crowd, which typically plays for free in public parks, that they'd have to pay a fee at Gleneagles to help offset the cost of labor at this revenue-starved facility.
Hsieh established an Indiego.com crowd-funding account anyway to gauge whether there was any real interest. He set a goal of $10,000 to help cover the cost of buying baskets and other equipment and clearing land for the routing. To his surprise, that goal was reached in three hours.
"These are the kinds of things small golf courses that don't have big bucks have to do to get creative and survive," he said.
"We will have it bookended: We'll have the least expensive round of golf and the most expensive disc golf round in San Francisco."